“Under [Juanjo Mena’s] darting baton, The Rite of Spring ceased being the textbook leviathan of musical modernism and became, supremely, music for dancing — urgent but lithe.”
“At 105 years old, Stravinsky’s ballet score still felt raw, dangerous and new.”
(Geoff Brown, The Times)
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“Here was a Rite that could be danced to, as well as being thrilling, and with an observant regard for the score’s folksong aspects, often overlooked in gung-ho approaches. Musical clarity was Mena’s watchword, no cheap thrills here, and no short-changing of the music either, and the opening of Part Two was unusually bewitching in its mystery and distance, yearning even.”
“The LPO was precise, dynamic and responsive throughout, Mena playing the long game so that the ‘Sacrificial Dance’ was the inevitable corollary to everything that had gone before. It was quite something to hear The Rite not treated glibly and used as a showpiece vehicle, for this was not a sensation-seeking account but one that gave a more-complete view of music easy to abuse that nevertheless fully conveyed the work’s sense of ritual and carousal, the final drop-dead chord properly emphatic.”
(Colin Anderson, Classical Source)

“Outstanding Stravinsky from Mena and the LPO […..] It is possible to become over-familiar with Le sacre, so that its dramatic force becomes diminished. But on this occasion everything sounded completely fresh.”
(Alan Sanders, Seen and Heard International)